Frost Mage DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (11.1.7)

At its most basic, the premise of Frost Mage is to spam Frostbolt until you gain a proc. Fingers of Frost allows you to cast Ice Lance and gain the benefits of the frozen state. Brain Freeze resets the cooldown of Flurry and Flurry wants you to use a cast time spell, like Frostbolt, going into the Flurry, and then follow up with 2 Ice Lances to consume the 2 remaining Winter's Chill charges.

This Frostbolt > Flurry > Ice Lance > Ice Lance combo is the heart of the spec, and if you have that committed to memory, then the rest is simple. Anything beyond it is simply cooldown and movement management. The priority lists below will showcase where exactly they are to be used optimally, but as long as they are being used at all, your damage should not suffer too severely.

Adding talents to the mix, you gain a few cooldowns and the requirement to keep track of your Mastery: Icicles. All of the spells added by talents still want to take advantage of the idea of the combo above but are used slightly differently each. Comet Storm should follow a Flurry so that it lands as Winter's Chill is still on the target, allowing all comets to Shatter. Likewise, Ray of Frost wants to be cast into the final charge of Winter's Chill to benefit the entire channel. Glacial Spike wants to Shatter as many casts as possible, either replacing the Frostbolt that precedes the Flurry in the combo or one of the spells that would take the place of the following Ice Lances.

On single target, Shifting Power should simply be used whenever all of your talented cooldowns are on cooldown, and you have no procs to go.

Use Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze as they come: Fingers of Frost, through straight Ice Lance casts, and Brain Freeze, through the primary Frostbolt > Flurry > Ice Lance > Ice Lance combo.

For further information on how and why the Frostbolt > Flurry > Ice Lance > Ice Lance combo works, see this section on the FAQ page.

When talented into Glacial Spike, Flurry timing becomes a bit of a game to see if you can land Glacial Spike somewhere within the combo. If, for instance, you finished casting some Ice Lances and are at 4 Icicles, you should instead just Flurry into Glacial Spike, skipping the initial spell in the combo.

Additionally, Comet Storm and Ray of Frost should both be held for Flurry. In the case of Comet Storm, you want to make sure you have enough time for the comets to finish falling within the Winter's Chill window. You could space this out by Flurry, Ice Lance, Comet Storm, Frostbolt, then Ice Lance. The Frostbolt should give you the extra time that you otherwise would not have, and the second Ice Lance will impact before Frostbolt unless you are extremely close to the target.

Ray of Frost, on the other hand, wants to be cast into the second charge of Winter's Chill at most relevant gear levels so as to not waste there being two charges on the target.

Ultimately, Frost Mage is primarily about abusing your casts in a way that is suitable to the situation. There are an enormous amount of possibilities, synergies, and overlaps that will provide an advantageous result. It is important, therefore, that you, as a player, think carefully about how you can use your spells in a way that makes sense. Try to avoid using your major abilities haphazardly or without thinking, as this will invariably result in you losing a lot of damage. When your Frozen Orb is about to come off cooldown, for example, start thinking about the ways you are going to cleave with it or if the boss is going to be moved. Check your boss's timers to see how you can line it up for a phase with increased damage dealt or AoE. A lot of this might seem like common sense, but you would be surprised how uncommon that is!